ANTS ON THE PLATES

The six plates began to hiss before the sky lost its last dark strip. A file of ants climbed through the nine-centimetre gap, crossed the metal and vanished into the fine channels of one of the pieces. They carried white grains, smaller than a fingernail, held between their mandibles. Célia saw first. She was sitting by the counter, the strap on her ankle hidden by the hem of her trousers. She pulled her feet up onto the stool when the first ant reached her sandal. They're bringing their brood. Nael crouched near the threshold. His knee bent slowly, as if the floor charged him for every centimetre. He touched the tip of his finger to the dust and followed the file out to the yard. The earth by the cartridge duct was open in a narrow crack. More ants came out of it, dark, hurried, carrying eggs and larvae to the heat of the plates. The water running from the duct had hardened the plaster into a damp strip. The ants had chosen that corner because the earth kept some softness. Then came the bank of units, then the metal at the door. Nael rubbed his thumb on the damp strip of plaster and wiped his finger on his trousers. Célia looked at the common jug closed on the worktop. If they get into the kitchen, they'll finish what's left. Ilva took a deep bowl and set it on the floor, away from the door. Nael brought from the yard a piece of dry buriti bark. He crumbled the fibre between his fingers and made a strip up to the bowl. The ants went along it without hesitating. The first file turned away from the metal, then the second, then a third, wide as a living line. A larva fell on the floor. Célia picked it up with the tip of a spoon and placed it in front of the trail. Don't step on it, said Nael. I won't step on it. The bar panel woke behind them. A news band took over the top of the projection. Two governments, separated by oceans and united by the same hunger for magnets, had tightened the export of heavy minerals after a summit two years earlier. The chain promised reorganisation. In the valley, reorganising meant more cargo waiting for road, more engines running, more water taken to keep metal and calculation in circulation. The next line reported that the batch of plates had received priority of permanence. Ilva turned the panel to the wall. The ants already covered the edge of the first plate. Some went into the cooling channels, others clung to the luminous band, still unlit. The metal had kept its heat through the night. Nael raised the buriti bark and saw the insects respond to the shade, changing direction. The file needed a continuous bridge. He pulled a low stool up to the threshold. If you take the plates away, they go back to the dry earth, said Célia. If you leave them, they come in here, he answered. Ilva stood looking at the box against the door. Antônio had left the bar to reach his son. She had stayed to sustain a kitchen that had never belonged to her. The cargo occupied the doorway like a body without a name, fed by the reserve she had kept from becoming energy. Nael rested both hands on the edge of the first plate. It weighs more than it looks. Célia took the other side. The blister on her ankle did not stop her, but her face lost colour when she strained. Ilva stepped in between the two. The plate rose a few centimetres. The ants spread over the surface and ran down their wrists, looking for the rest of the trail. Take it to the bench, said Nael. The bench stood outside the door, on an area of beaten earth where the shade of the buriti would last only a little while. They set the first piece down there. Then the second. The other four came after, dragged slowly, leaving deep scores in the ground. Each score exposed a layer of pale dust, brought by the trucks from the pit and settled over the yard for months. The ants found the buriti bark. They went down along the fibres. In less than a minute, the threshold lost its file. The panel gave a short sound. Cargo moved from the auxiliary point. Temporary custody ended. Célia wiped her forearm across her forehead and stared at the door, free now. They expected you to choose looking at a screen. Ilva pulled the common jug inside the built-in compartment. The kitchen still recognised her face, but the deadline had disappeared from the projection. In its place appeared an open charge against Antônio, absence of holder during alteration of cargo. Nael picked up the last larva left on the metal. He carried it to the buriti bark and waited for the file to take it. When I drove machines round here, he said, we broke nests with the tracks and nobody stopped. Afterwards there'd be ants in your lunchbox, in your boot, in your ear. Célia touched two fingers to the blue light leaking under the plates and pulled them away fast. Ilva opened the parallel ledger for a few seconds. She recorded the removal of the plates, the time the custody disappeared, the direction of the colony and the place where the metal had been set down. Then she closed the device. On the high road, a cargo convoy waited for permission to come down. The line of vehicles already reached round the bend above the Lajes. Dawn arrived with the metal still, the ants moving and the house once more without anyone who could say it was theirs.